The BBC reports that more than 10,000 serious violent crimes were dealt with (or not) last year by “community resolutions”. This means apologies and compensation, but no criminal record for the perpetrator. It was done in the name of “reducing the burden on the criminal justice system”. Bless.

I bet glowing clear up rates had nothing to do with it either. Let’s stop reporting all crime to ease all those burdens on the poor darlings who trouser our loot under the pretence of “protecting society”, and who then tell us we should be happy with an apology after being attacked.

We can assume these were 10,000+ serious violent crimes against mere mundanes. “Serious violent crime” against politicians and judges would not be settled with an apology.

Former London mayor blames the U.S.

for Boston bombing attack

Red Ken

The Washington Times

The former mayor of London took to Press TV, an Iranian state-run network, recently to express his disdain for the Bush White House and his assurance that the Boston Marathon bombings were brought upon the United States because of its injustices abroad.

“Very often, people get incredibly angry about injustices that they see,” Ken Livingstone said Friday, according to a transcript by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a nonprofit. “They would have been reading about the torture at Guantanamo Bay, at Baghram airbase. They would have read stuff about how, I think it is 54 different countries secretly collaborated with America for this rendition — people being snatched off streets taken to be tortured, because the Bush regime believed that they were all potential terrorists.

“There was such ignorance in the Bush White House about Islam and about the history of so many disputes that exist in the Middle East. People get angry — they lash out,” he continued. “… It’s the whole squalid intervention that has disfigured the record of the Western democracies. I think this fuels the anger of the young men, who — as we saw in Boston — went out, and, out of anger and demand for revenge, claimed lives in the West.”

Technically I am not sure if Madame George was actually gay since Van Morrison claimed he didn’t know himself – though I would imagine a man in high heels strolling along Cyprus Avenue in Belfast would still cause some passing looks. But if Madame George is gay, he won’t be able to marry in Northern Ireland.

In any event the Unionists have found a union they don’t like, namely gay marriage. Accordingly, a bid to legalize gay marriage in Northern Ireland has been defeated along mostly party lines. The nationalists voted in favor. I ask those more acquainted with Northern Irish history if this is the first time the Unionist Politicians have voted in strict accordance with the requests of the Roman Catholic Church leaders? And would either group reconsider their opinion based on that fact?

I suppose there will be further legal challenges. There are UK-wide implications. No doubt the EU will weigh in as well. Time will tell if the love that loves is enough, legally.

A Welsh woman has been made to pay compensation for using a racist slur against an English woman after calling her “an English cow”.

Elen Humphreys, 25, of Garndolbenmaen, near Porthmadog, pleaded guilty to racially aggravated harassment, after she branded Angela Payne, who had an affair with her father, an “English cow.”

Phil Bennett, the great Welsh fly-half, gave a team talk ahead of the 1977 match against England that went like this:

“Look what these bastards have done to Wales. They’ve taken our coal, our water, our steel. They buy our homes and live in them for a fortnight every year. What have they given us? Absolutely nothing. We’ve been exploited, raped, controlled and punished by the English — and that’s who you are playing this afternoon.”

It’s a pep-talk which has gone down in rugby lore, but if he said it now he’d be banged up. Please – please – someone make it stop.

The title of course comes from the stand of the British (Scottish) at the Battle of Balaclava. And of course Kipling’s poem which identified when Tommy would be called to form the thin red line. It would appear that the time to call Tommy (and more accurately his Yankee cousins) to form the thin red line has not yet developed in regard to Syria or Iran. This is not to say that the governments of Syria or Iran are up to any good, quite the contrary. But going to code red and the rockets red glare today is premature. Even noted liberal Prime Minister Netanyahu has stated that Iran hasn’t gotten to that point yet.

The World therefore has an opportunity, and should not squander it. There is still time for significant sanctions and serious diplomacy. War as an option is almost always due to failure. If there are those who wish to avoid the mistakes of the war-prone, such as Senator John McCain, then it is necessary to support viable alternatives. And it is necessary for the real participation of other nations in the discussion. I’d like to see the President of the United States point that out with a little more diplomatic elbow to some of the other players.

Yes please, and Dr Devi Prasad Shetty is making it happen in India. He clearly understands that when government and industry club together, the customer gets ripped off, as we see with astronomically inflated health care costs in the West. His response is to cut through that and give value for money. In the mega-regulated health industry this is revolutionary stuff. Do read it all.

For some reason, the CIA has been dropping off tens of millions of dollars to Karzai’s office for over a decade. The payments – cash packed in suitcases, rucksacks and plastic bags – are still being made. The New York Times reports:

For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.

All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.

But without government, who will make Karzai stinkingly rich?

Moreover, there is little evidence that the payments bought the influence the C.I.A. sought. Instead, some American officials said, the cash has fueled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan.

“The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan,” one American official said, “was the United States.”

Someone thinks this is good policy – for themselves. Goodness knows the useless Karzai isn’t worth it. I can only imagine alot of cash has been channeled round to American-owned bank accounts in exotic places.

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THE PRICE OF REWARDING TERRORISM

You do not defeat terrorism by rewarding terrorists, regardless of how many bleeding heart liberals argue otherwise. Want to know where that flawed approach leads to? Read UNIONISM DECAYED 1997-2007 - It's my first book and it explains what happens when you seeek to appease terrorists and call it peace. It's available right now for ATW readers so make sure you get your copy by emailing the editor! This is the book that dissents from the herd mentality that doing wrong can lead to being right. It doesn't and this book spells out WHY.

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